Christie: I’m ready to be president because I’d do ‘exactly what Ronald Reagan would have done’

Republican New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) on Sunday argued that he had the right temperament to be president because he was like conservative hero Ronald Reagan.

Following his expected landslide re-election, the New Jersey governor spent his Sunday appearing on at least four news shows, fueling the speculation that he was gearing up for a presidential run in 2016.

But Fox News host Chris Wallace pointed out that Christie had demonstrated a “short temper” over the course of his career.

“Do you have the patience for — you call it the garbage — the parlor game of being picked apart by the other politicians, being picked apart by us in the media for two years if you decide to run for president?” the Fox News host wondered.

“Listen, I’m the governor of New Jersey,” Christie declared. “And if you don’t think that being governor of New Jersey tries your patience then you haven’t spent enough time in my state, Chris. I am absolutely confident in my own ability to lead, and obviously so are 62 percent of the people the state of New Jersey who re-elected me on Tuesday night.”

“At the end of the day, Chris, here are what people in Washington, D.C. don’t understand,” he continued. “If you want to win a vote by that kind of margin, if you want to attract a majority of the Hispanic vote, if you want to nearly triple your African-American vote, you need to show up, you need to go into those neighborhoods, you need to campaign in places.”

Christie recalled that he had done a town hall in Essex County in 2009 and more people showed up at the event than voted for him in that city that year.

“That’s the way the Republican Party will make itselves [sic] more relevant to a whole much broader group of folks,” he insisted. “And the fact is, that’s exactly what Ronald Reagan would have done and did do when he was campaigning for president. I did that campaigning for governor because I believed it’s what’s right to do as governor when you represent all the people.”

About the Author

David Edwards has served as an editor at Raw Story since 2006. His work can also be found at Crooks & Liars, and he's also been published at The BRAD BLOG. He came to Raw Story after working as a network manager for the state of North Carolina and as as engineer developing enterprise resource planning software. Follow him on Twitter at @DavidEdwards.